Chattanooga was once known as the “saddle capital of the world.”
At the center of this designation was the Scholze Tannery, a Scenic City institution that operated for more than 100 years, bridging three centuries (1873-2001).
This January 1968 photograph shows workers at the tannery near South Broad Street treating hides to supply the nation’s leather trade.
A classified ad in Chattanooga’s newspapers that year offered entry-level jobs at the tannery for $1.60 an hour. Interestingly, when adjusted for inflation, that 1968 wage would equal about $12 an hour today, which made it the highest effective minimum wage in U.S. history, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The photo was among company archives preserved by a former tannery executive, Gene Carter, who shared it with ChattanoogaHistory.com, a local history website that partners with the Times Free Press in this series. The photo is stamped by Roy Tulley Photos, a photography business active here in the 1950s and 1960s.